Brussels, 23/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Commission should fully measure the impact of the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU invalidating the 2006 directive, both on the retention of telecoms data on national mechanisms and on international instruments concluded with third countries, such as the PNR agreement, which it may have to revise.
These recommendations were made on Wednesday 23 July by two researchers from Münster and Luxembourg, whose study was commissioned by the Greens/EFA Group at the European Parliament.
In April, the Court of Justice invalidated the directive put together following the attacks in Madrid and London and allowing telecoms operators to store the data of their clients for between 6 and 24 months (see EUROPE 11056). It described the directive as entailing a “wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with the fundamental rights”, which was not “limited to what is strictly necessary”. The Court declared the text null and void and cancelled all proceedings launched by the Commission against member states which had refused to transpose the text.
Given the legal uncertainty and pending the position of the future Juncker Commission, the member states' reactions have varied widely: Austria recently annulled its laws, the UK put through emergency new legislation (see EUROPE 11121). In the absence of the directive, the two researchers have in any case established that the national provisions in force could be justified on the grounds of the European e-privacy directive, which does not allow general retention of data, with the exception of certain circumstances and in full respect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The European Commission should lean on the member states to ensure that they check that their laws are compliant, the authors of the study stress. They should also take a very close look at all international agreements concluded and which, like the so-called PNR agreements, are based on the wholesale storage of data, without specifically targeting suspect individuals. The EURODAC database, which collects digital fingerprints from asylum seekers and which is accessible by the police forces, is also concerned, as is the SWIFT-TFTP agreement on the future European PNR. The two researchers believe that, while the consequences of this verdict do not necessarily spell the end of data storage, they could in any case be quite considerable. (SP)